Just joined the W124 club - need some advice

[Biggow]

Hi all,

I finally bought myself a W124 at the weekend, after several months of looking, and I couldn't be happier. The car is a 94 E220 with 75,000 miles on the clock, with a full MBSH and all previous MOT's to back up the mileage. Plus the body work is very clean.

The car is due a service, so I will get it thoroughly checked out when it goes in for that in the next week or so, but there are a couple of issues that I thought people here may know more about. Firstly, it seems to idle a little unevenly, and therefore sometime lurches when moving slowly and breaking. In other words the revs are going up and down slightly, and sometimes when breaking the revs will suddenly spike thus make the car lurch forward slightly even though my foot is on the break. Has anyone heard of anything like that?

Also, it does seem quite noisy at 70mph+, almost as if it's in too low a gear. Is that normal for a 220, or could that potentially be a problem?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bolide]

Poor idling on 220s seems to be a common complaint on this forum - do a search and you'll see. I don't think there's a silver bullet cure-all for it - you have to check everything

W124s are pretty undergeared and I'd expect it to be pulling about 20 mph / 1000 revs in top. So 3500 rpm at 70. Noisy little engine, isn't it?

If there's lots of noise round the driver's door either the top of the door needs pulling in by adjusting the hinges or the window's not closing properly

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[Biggow]

Thanks for that Nick. I was originally looking for a diesel, but to be honest I found them just a little too slow for me, so I took the advice from your site and went looked at the 220 instead, as economy was definitely a factor. The 220 for me is certainly a lot more acceptable from a performance point of view, I just hope the mpg turns out ok.

The engine does seem to be pulling a little over 3000rpm at 70mph which, from what you are saying, sounds like it's normal. I don't really have a problem with it, I just wanted to check there wasn't a problem.